hardcore punk music incorperating screaming/spoken vocals. Accompanied by erratic guitar and drum beats. Lyrics tend to be dark/hateful. Genre died around late 90's. Had its climax in the late 80's early 90's. Bands such as Alesana (post-hardcore/hardcore), A Day To Remeber (hardcore/pop punk), The Devil Wears Prada (hardcore/post-hardcore), Underoath (new, post-hardcore, old, metalcore/deathcore), August Burns Red (metalcore), Asking Alexandria (shitty metalcore) are often mistaken as 'screamo' music. The proper genres for each band is listed next to each one. More examples of mistaken screamo would be: Bring me the horizon (shitty metalcore, deathcore), Entombed (Death metal), Job for a cowboy(death metal), The Analyst (death metal, deathcore) Disfiguring the Goddess (deathcore, deathmetal), I declair war (deathcore, deathmetal), Suicide Silence (deathmetal), Malodorus (deathmetal). And to also clear things up the word 'emo' means nothing and is nothing. Its a stupid word to piss off over dramatic, egotistical people. The word was made up by media and ignorant douche bags.

And as a side note: The word emo no longer harms anyone. It makes you look stupid. Especially if you yell it at someone across a college campus. screamo is dead

screamo is a term that refers to recent bands that play old style emo. Most pinpoint the first use of the term to Saetia. When the media started to label pop punk and indie rock bands emo, people needed a new word to describe the style of music that used to be characterized with emo. Some say screamo is a little more artsy and pretentious than older emo, but that's arguable.

Generally the term Screamo refers to a branch of hardcore popularised in the 1990's by bands such as City of Caterpillar, Envy, Orchid, Saetia et al. Often features dischordant riffs, high-pitched screams, some spoken-word vocals (Saetia were known to utilize this technique quite often), and quite often the recordings were very lo-fi, and grainy.

However the term has been heavily popularised by MTV as a reference to the pop-punk/emo bands of the new century (Finch, Story of the Year etc).

Saetia, Angel Hair, After School Knife Fight, Joshua Fit for Battle, City of Caterpillar, Neil Perry...most of the bands on Level Plane Records.

Subdivision of emo and hardcore, generally having more similarities to hardcore in terms of instrumentals, but lyrics are closer to emo. Screamed or spoken-word vocals, laden over soft, proggy riffs or crashing metal madness, more the latter. Mostly dead by now, as the genre was already heavily explored in the 90's by bands such as Hot Cross, Saetia and Orchid.

Most modern (post-2000, really) bands referred to as screamo are either emocore, such as Alexisonfire and Thursday, or mall punks wearing eyeliner and trying to be scary, such as The Used and My Chemical Romance. Derision should not be layed against such mall punk bands, however, as they still have enough balls to wreck their vocal chords while singing about how they're just kids and thier lives are nightmares.

"Man, this Level-Plane screamo stuff is way too hardcore for my ears. But hot damn, those are some cool riffs." CORRECT

Screamo is emotional post-hardcore music. It is not pretentious, only the people involved can make it that way. It is not a trend, only the people involved can make it that way.
Note : Just because you heard The Used and Finch and thought they were screamo doesn't make them the first ones to do it, and doesn't make it screamo. They are very far from it. I doubt you'll hear Hot Cross or Yaphet Kotto on the radio anytime soon - and that's just the way we like it.